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The funny thing is that that definition of content is still operating. “Content” is a term for the undifferentiated media framed by advertisement. To an advertiser it doesn’t matter what the content is, it’s just bits on the wire that seem to attract attention.

If you can’t put an ad in it then it isn’t content. Insidiously, we now call things content even if they don’t have advertisement or are not created for show.

This term of business art reminds me unpleasantly of Borders, and now defunct bookstore chain where managers insisted staff refer to books and other media as 'product', reducing staff to little more than super-market-grade shelf-stackers and merchandisers.

I grew up in a time and place where people who worked in bookstores did so because they liked books and were knowledgeable about the book industry as both distributors and consumers. Chain stores like Borders preferred to hire young and cheap and make stocking decisions centrally. The staff could probably have been swapped with a completely different retail establishment, and both outlets would have run in much the same way.

Free market advocates like to go on about the self-corrective nature of 'real' capitalism/competition, but never seem to have any answer for the existence of franchises or their tendency to crowd out other participants in a market by having a much deeper pool of capital to use as leverage. The idealistic models of perfect competition and price equilibrium only work well under elusive conditions and for fungible commodities.

Thank you for saying this. I've had a similar opinion for years now. I cringe whenever I see "content" used this way.

When I first saw that it was gaining traction, I took it as yet another sign that the internet was effectively dead in terms of what always made it great for me, and had been turned into nothing more than business.

The problem is that not all content is entertainment. Many "content creators" are producing content whose intent is to educate, inform, persuade, or (mostly likely) some inseparable combination of all four.

I don't like "content" either. I prefer "media". But there's an entirely logical reason we don't call it "entertainment". That would be like calling all clothing "pants".

A medium is rather like a frame; it doesn't say anything about what is contained.

The reason we don't call it "entertainment" is because we're embarrassed to admit that it's all entertainment.

If the "content" isn't entertainment, it often has no ads and is referred to via another name.

> it often has no ads

At least 95% of what I watch on Youtube is educational or technical. It's self-teaching material, math, science, that sort of thing. Most people would find it dry but I enjoy it.

Still, I wouldn't call it entertainment.

I assure you it has just as many ads: pre-roll ads, clickable ads below the fold, interstitial ads, and "a word from our sponsor" ads as everything else on YouTube.

It's literally entertainment; you're being entertained by it. That doesn't mean it isn't teaching you or otherwise improving the world, but it's broadly in the class of entertainment.

I suppose I'd still classify it as entertainment even if you paid for YouTube premium.

If we declare anything enjoyable to be “entertainment”, then wouldn’t household chores that happen to relax you or bring you joy also be classified as entertainment? Cooking does often feel pleasant, but I don’t think most people would call it entertainment.

If we call all content that we enjoy watching “entertainment”, then IMO the word loses the meaning a little.

Those are often referred to as pastimes or hobbies — and I think the “entertainmentification” of all (lacking a word let’s say content) has been a major issue in the recent decades.

It’s becoming hard to even find a youtube video that doesn’t have “like and subscribe” somewhere in it, even if it’s not otherwise sponsored.

Asking to like and subscribe is a standard YouTuber behaviour because they presumably get a cut from the ads that YouTube runs on their channel. Or even if the channel is run entirely not for profit, liking and subscribing increases the chance that new users will see the content in their suggested videos thanks to an algorithmic boost.

I think you're projecting your own Internet consumption preferences onto all of us.

Most of what I spend my time on on the web and YouTube is more towards educational than entertainment, though the line gets blurry (which is the point of having a unifying term like "content") when it comes to videos about music-making and stuff like that.

You can already call most things "content" without a whiff of irony. Just look at youtube. "Content creators", you think they're misusing the words? No they're being 100% genuine to you what their intention is.

Also, here's a good website in general for this kind of stuff, thank you Stallman: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.en.html#Conten...

I see people write “I like their content” and have the same irking feeling that some people feel like their life is little more than consuming entertainment, and the word “content” elevates the worthwhileness of their behavior/addiction somehow.

I'm not sure I follow your criticism. I do believe that the term "content" is perfectly appropriate for most of what's being put out there. "Content" convey this idea of "quantity over quality". I am grateful when someone identifies themselves as "content creator", or when streaming platforms talk about their "content", because to me it is a strong signal that it's gonna be garbage and can be ignored.

From my observation, this also a counter-movement of influencers to distance themselves from the term influencer. People want to take some pride in their work and try to see some worth in it. And they want to distance it from the bland marketing and stupid pointless activities. Everyone makes pictures of their food, but if you hire a semi-professional photograph and pose for a picture, then it's real work and worthful content. Something along that line.

I get a similar sort of reaction to "content", and I get a similar reaction to "units" which is used as a catch-all term for physical items sold, be they DVDs, t-shirts, game cartridges, wrenches, sneakers, whatever.

The person talking about sales of "the thing" doesn't care what "the thing" is. The language implies that "the thing" itself is irrelevant. All that matters is that it's something that can be sold, and the only important datum is how many were sold. And maybe how much they were sold for. Aside from that, to the person using that language, it's all just undifferentiated stuff.

I think from there, if the person talking about "units" or "content" doesn't really care about what the thing is, they're going to care even less about whether it's a good example of that type of thing. Is it a good t-shirt? Or a bad pair of sneakers? Who cares - how many units were sold?

Are you making movie review videos? Or 30-minute+ EDM/prog fusion atmospheric music tracks? Or 5000-word investigative journalism takedowns of corporate shitfuckery? Or are you just making "content" - whatever will grab some eyeballs?

Even worse is instagram entertainers who go by influencers. They don't even claim to produce content, just that they can influence users behavior.

Obviously this is is valuable for the customers of social networks (advertisers), but it's usually not so blatantly exposed.

Cannot stand the term either, so many problems with it. For one it completely lacks any kind of precision... and the idea of 'consuming content' is just gross and stupid.

The word suggests undifferentiated goop (pink slime?) being poured into cans for mass consumption, and shows the respect its producers have for both the product and its consumers.

Language changes, get over it

Changing it back is a change by itself, genius.

Regardless, I think it's interesting to consider why it's changing and the direction of those changes. As an extreme example, if 1984-style doublespeak started to take root, it would be valuable to consider why and whether this is a good thing.

I actually experience this in the exact reverse from the way you are proposing. I’d argue that this is specifically referred to as “content” because it is generated en masse, as opposed to something carefully crafted. This is they way I see most “content” on the internet. For instance, TikTok video that is made in a minute? Content. Pixar film that takes >100 minutes of work for 1 minute of film? Art.